University Women’s Club Donna Eason, Membership at the University of Tennessee P.O. Box 10438 Knoxville, TN 37939 (865) 607-6179 Volume VIII, Issue 2 Fall 2020 Greetings from UWC President and schedule this first one. Our Hospitality Chair, Jennifer Benton, will be setting this up on the UTK Dava Shoffner system. (We owe her a real debt of gratitude as this is way outside of her “job description”!) Peggy Dear UWC Members, Pierce, as the Program Chair, will introduce Welcome to a new and different year with the Ambassador Scobey and manage questions after University Women’s Club. Our Board is meeting her presentation. regularly and making Please register and join us. You can join a Zoom plans (always tentative meeting via your computer (we can’t see you unless now) for the you have a camera in the laptop or attached to it), upcoming year. or your phone. The Board had to learn the process, As you will see in this and we had a lot of laughs over dropped audio and newsletter, we will video! It is a growth experience but once you do it, have our first regular you will find it easy (or at least easier!) meeting via Zoom on I promise that we will give instructions before the September 11 at session and even while you are joining us, and we noon. Ambassador will all laugh together as friends. You might even sit Margaret Scobey, with another member (masked, of course) who originally scheduled does feel comfortable with Zooming, and you both for the spring meeting, graciously agreed to give can hear Ambassador Scobey. her presentation digitally.. Stay well, Dava Plans for an October event in UT Gardens are proceeding and more information on that will follow. The weather should be beautiful then, and Ambassador Margaret Scobey to we can distance ourselves in the open air. Speak to UWC via Zoom, I want to comment on the responses to my letter September 11, Noon asking each of you to answer a question or two. The responses were somewhat limited, but a lot of In the UWC’s first Zoom meeting, Ambassador you reported that you give annually to the Margaret Scobey will share her perspectives on the scholarship fund. That is probably the most Middle East, drawing on her 32-year Foreign Service worthwhile thing we do as a group, and our career in the region. After posts in Jerusalem, Kuwait, recipients have written such wonderful letters Pakistan and Peru, she served as Deputy Chief of thanking us. The members of the board are Mission in Yemen and later in Saudi Arabia. She was discussing ideas of other community related needs appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Syria in 2003. we might want to include in the future club From 2006 to 2007 she was Political Counselor in endeavors. (“Community” could be the UTK Baghdad. Her last assignment in the Foreign Service community, our county, or our state.) There are was as Deputy Commandant of the Industrial College needs that most of us have not even been aware of, of the Armed Forces at the National Defense like the food pantry for UTK students in need. University in Washington, D.C. Although only about 16 of you responded that you For the Department of State, Ambassador Scobey also would probably participate in Zoom meetings with served as Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of speakers, we decided that was enough to go ahead Near East and South Asian Affairs, Watch Officer in 1 the Operations Center, Political-Military Officer in the Future UWC Meetings Office of Israel and Arab-Israeli Affairs, Deputy Director of the Secretariat Staff, and Director of the Suffrage Rose Bush Dedication: October 9, 11:30 Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs. am. More information will be emailed soon. Given A native of Memphis, Ambassador Scobey holds a the uncertainties of the pandemic, the UWC plans to bachelor’s and a master’s in History from UTK. She continue with outdoor or online activities for the next has received several awards, including the Department few months. As soon as conditions make it safe, we of State award for Distinguished Service and a will return to our in-person meetings. Presidential Award. Since retiring to East Tennessee, she serves on the boards of Bridge Refugee Services and the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy. UWC Treasurer’s Report for FY Information on registering for this Zoom meeting has 2019-2020 been emailed to UWC members. If you register for 7/09/2019 – 6/30/2020* this meeting, you will receive a link from Jennifer Benton a few days before the meeting inviting you to Balance on Hand, 7/09/2019 $1,250.56 join and explaining how. Income: Dues 1,328.00 2020-21 UWC Board Members* Food 2,265.00 President: Dava Shoffner 966-9202 Scholarship (UWC) 447.00 [email protected] Gifts/Misc. 28.00 Total Income: 4,068.00 Vice President (President-Elect): Sue Hamilton 387- 5999 [email protected] Total Funds: $5,318.56 Secretary: Casey Fox 974-0055 (W); 207-5024 (C) Expenses: [email protected] Printing 393.13 Treasurer: Natalie Smith 979-739-5457 Postage 305.50 Office Supplies (paper, checks) 200.04 [email protected] Food 2,371.09 Past President: Regina Dean 250-2585 (C) 974-1547 PO Box Rental 134.00 (W) [email protected] Scholarships to UT** 647.00 Programs: Peggy Pierce 577-8480 (H) 405-7738 (C) Memorials to UT Libraries 75.00 Honoraria to UT Libraries 250.00 [email protected] Total Expenses: 4,375.76 Newsletter: Lisa Carroll 776-6944 [email protected] Balance on Hand, 6/30/2020 $942.80 Yearbook/Media: Megan Venable 591-5912 [email protected] Scholarship Fund Balance 7/09/2019 $1,665.00 Membership: Donna Eason 607-6179 Through UWC** 647.00 [email protected] Checks sent to UT through treasurer 1,480.00 Additional contributions directly to UT 1,797.51 Interest Groups: Nancy Howell 661-0091 (includes $950 from Big Orange Give) [email protected] Scholarship Fund Total, 6/30/2020 $5,589.51 Historian/Publicity: Audrey Duncan 588-8371 Two scholarships to be awarded 3,000.00 [email protected] ($1,500 each) Hospitality: Jennifer Benton 423-408-4070 Balance for 2020-2021 $2,589.51 [email protected]; Co-Chair (table decorations): Kathy Lasater 966-5009 [email protected] Certificate of Deposit, 6/30/2020: $4,565.81 Holiday Reception: Stacey-Ann Palado 974-2143 *Books were closed out on 7/09/19 for FY 2018-2019. [email protected] **Includes $200 in honor of 2018-19 UWC President Sharon Smith and 2019-20 UWC President Regina Dean. Spring Luncheon: Debbie Woodiel 603-0407 [email protected] *All phone numbers are in area code 865 unless otherwise indicated. 2 Tennessee’s Role in the movement were significant during the 1920 summer of 1920, with two prominent African-American 19th Amendment women, Juno Frankie Pierce of Nashville and Ida B. by Nancy Howell, UWC Interest Group Chair Wells-Barnett, both of Memphis, advocating for the vote for all women. Pierce’s image appears in the An important Constitutional milestone occurred as the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument in Nashville. result of a vote 100 years ago in the Tennessee General Assembly. Most University Women’s Club Three Tennessee suffragists—Lizzie Crozier French members are probably aware that Tennessee was the of Knoxville, Anne Dallas Dudley of Nashville, and final state to approve the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Elizabeth Avery Meriwether of Memphis—are Constitution, during a summer of high drama. depicted in the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial, located at Market Square in downtown Knoxville. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of women receiving the right to vote in the United States, the On the first federal election day that included women UWC, in collaboration with Dr. Sue Hamilton and UT voters, November 2, 1920, an estimated 10 million Gardens, will plant a yellow rose bush at UT Gardens women voted, representing about one third of eligible with a plaque that notes the local connection to the female voters. (4) Although the percentage of eligible historic vote. The yellow rose was a symbol of male voters outnumbered female voters in every supporters of the amendment. The UWC dedication presidential race prior to 1980, female voters have of the rose bush and plaque is tentatively planned for outnumbered male voters in every presidential early October, with details to be provided soon. election since (63% female, 59% male in 2016). (5) The 96-member Tennessee House was divided on the We have not yet found direct information about amendment when the vote came to the floor August involvement of past members of University Women’s 18, 1920. The Senate had already voted for the Club (then Faculty Wives Club) in passage of the 19th amendment, but without a majority of yes votes in the Amendment although a 1916 letter from UT President House, the amendment would fail not only in the Brown Ayres to Lizzie Crozier French is in French’s state, but nationally. Thirty-six states were needed to archived papers. Katie Anderson Ayres, wife of pass the amendment; Tennessee would be the 36th. Brown Ayres, founded the UT Faculty Wives Club in 1912. The short letter concerned a response to a UT Legislators, including Harry Burn from McMinn professor’s lecture, not the 19th Amendment. Still, we County, cast their critical votes on that hot August wonder what the women in the early club thought of day. Burn, a 24-year-old freshman representative, the women’s suffrage movement and what discussions carried a letter in his pocket from his mother, Febb may have occurred during their gatherings.